Here is a great one…a principal at a school in the San Francisco area, decided to withhold student election results…wait for it…because he was concerned about the diversity of the winners. So the students participated in a democratic process, but this guy thinks he needs to withhold the results because he doesn’t like them. If he is that concerned with diversity he should resign, being a white principal at a school that is 82% black…but of course liberal apologists don’t see themselves as part of the problem, no they are the engineers of the solution.

In the video, the officer obviously accosted the first student without provocation. I want to be crystal clear here…the officer chased down the first girl to initiate the beating. I didn’t see any aggression from the second student before she was attacked either. The third student, seeing two of her cousins getting assaulted by the officer, stepped in and I think threw a punch, which the officer decided to respond with baton blows to the face, resulting in 10 stitches. Then the officer, returns to her assault of the first two girls by spraying them with pepper spray. Loved the fact that another administrator, rather than trying to calm the situation, held one of the girls so she could be pepper sprayed. After investigation, both the school superintendent and the police chief joined in the stupidity by upholding the suspension of the girls, and validating the officers decision to baton the third girl, respectively. Folks, if you can help it, DONT SEND YOUR KIDS INTO SCHOOLS WHERE THEY CAN BE SUBJECTED TO BEATINGS BY SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS AND THEN BE PUNISHED FOR IT.

Apparently the teacher tried to help the student by sending an email, and this boy decided actual action was necessary once the student fell out of her seat onto the floor. He helped her up, said some choice words, and helped get her to where she could receive actual medical care. Another case of the system punishing failure to comply, regardless of the situation. After they suspended the student, they were nice enough to call his mom and ask why he wasn’t in school. Priceless!

In this bizarre story a 14 year old student is facing potential assault charges for hitting her teacher in the head with a baby carrot. Now I don’t condone vegetable based violence, but do we really need to spend thousands of dollars of taxpayer funds to prosecute this young girl for throwing a carrot? And she was suspended for a month? I’m at a loss for words, what do you guys think?

For years the ASVAB testing program has been administered by schools(I took it over 15 years ago) across America, only for that information to be provided to the US Military without parental consent or knowledge so that recruiters can build a profile on your children and use that information to recruit them into the military. Here is some information provided by a listener of the Survival Podcast regarding the MANDATORY TESTING her son was made to participate in:

In a nutshell, my son’s school has been promoting College and Career Day of Testing for a couple of weeks now. An email was sent out on October 2nd that was the typical school highlights covering sports events, competitions, field trips, etc. and there was a blurb mentioning the upcoming day of testing on October 14th…MISD High School College/Career Readiness Testing Day will be Wed, Oct 14th. All students will either be involved in a testing opportunity (10th and 11th grade PSAT & 12th grade ASVAB) or a 9th grade College/Career Readiness activity.
I wasn’t worried about it since I knew my son wasn’t interested in going into the military after high school. In the past few days, and more heavily yesterday (the day before testing) more emails and then a voice message came through reminding everyone of testing specifically noting that all students were “expected” to be present at 7:25 am for testing. When I asked another parent about what test Seniors were taking and if they had to be there I was told it was the ASVAB and I immediately linked it to military recruiting, asking if the other parents knew that. The other parent actually said she was told it helped find out kids’ interests and other skills. I let her know it was specifically used for military career placement and not for any other reason.
When I kept reasearching I found out how long this has been going on (literally for decades) and that its typically kept under parental radar since social security numbers, student contact information and test scores are reported only to military recruiters. There is also a privacy statement that the students have to sign before taking the exam. Evidently some schools can choose certain options (1 though 8) to help protect students’ privacy, but our district has made no mention of any student protections through those options that are being provided.
When I pressed the Pricipal of our high school she told me that she had taken the ASVAB in high school and there was nothing wrong with it, she claimed to provide transparency with the statement noted above and that none of the testing was being done with any secrecy. When I continued to ask about why an opt-out option hadn’t been provided I didn’t get a response. When I asked if students would be penalized if they didn’t take the exam she noted that if they missed the test they would need an excused absence. What this translates to is that the absence would be unexcused (without parental help and an excuse) and if the student has 2 or more unexcused absenses they will lose their end of year exemptions from certain exams. So, basically take the test or get an unexcused absence. No other “career opportunity for testing” provided for the seniors, like an ACT or SAT prep class or a skill set development test that would help them in career fields not needed for college.
Other parents have been actively emailing the same Prinicpal, as well as other members of the school district today. We keep getting the same canned responses that the test has been given for years, there is no secret agenda and the school is getting nothing in return. But, there is no justification offered for the lack of alternatives for students who do not plan to go into the military and do not want this used as a military recruiting tool leading recruiters back to them.

This is a clear violation of Students Privacy rights, and the schools and administrators are complicit in the scheme.

Don’t pass the graduation exam, graduate anyways…don’t do any work in school, get a C anyways. I mean seriously people, why even have school in the state of California? Now the school board has apparently come out to say that the article isn’t entirely accurate and that a fail is still a fail and that no one gets a C for not doing anything, but my question is why are they changing it to begin with? A student will receive 50% for not participating in class, rather than a 0%, so that they can more easily bring that up to a passing grade in the event they decide to care.

In This hilarious story, the Alabama State 2014-15 Teacher of the year and a National Teacher of the year finalist resigns after being told that she is unqualified. You see 21 years of education experience and both State and National certifications aren’t enough for this teacher to be able to teach 5th grade, which by the way she wasn’t hired to do. Ann Marie Corgill joined Oliver Elementary School to teach the 2nd grade, which even by these ridiculous standards she is fully qualified for, but she was then re-assigned to the 5th grade, at which point her state certification was called into question because it is only good through 3rd grade, and the state requirements trump her National Certification for students between 7 and 12 years old(which covers 5th grade).

In her resignation letter she wrote:

“After 21 years of teaching in grades 1-6, I have no answers as to why this is a problem now, so instead of paying more fees, taking more tests, and proving once again that I am qualified to teach, I am resigning,”

I say good for Ann Marie, hopefully she can find another teaching job in an avenue that is more conducive to both her students education as well as her own frustration level. You see even when we have great teachers, the bureaucratic red tape seems to always find a way to get in the way and force them out of the system.

In a fight, I think we would all typically assume violent felons from New York could beat nerds from Harvard…that being said most of us wouldn’t assume those felons would also win in a debate, against the reigning national champion Harvard Debate team.

According to this story being circulated, the felons did just that earlier this year. Ill leave you to read the linked story to get more details, what I really want to point out here is that this is a perfect example of non-standard education beating out students from what most people consider to be the most prestigious and oldest institute of higher leaning in America.

You had a group of intelligent, highly motivated criminals, who worked very hard and take pride in what they do, and they wiped the floor with the best debate team in the nation. They have apparently also beaten debate teams from university of Vermont and West Point. These guy have to learn the old fashioned way, without the internet. They can request books and other reference material, but it has to be vetted by the prison staff before they can use it, a process which can take weeks.

I think this is a great example of how motivated students with a desire to learn can outperform even students with elite resumes, from a world renowned university.

According to the numbers, the recession has been over for several years(questionable). The stock market is booming, cities are growing again, and money is available at the lowest rates in the history of mankind. So why do we keep hearing stories about budget cuts for school, districts without money, classroom sizes exploding or schools being built without things like Art or Music rooms? When I was in school we had PE, art, Music, Second Language, Home Economics, Computer Programming, and other non standard classes as early as elementary school. Now we are hearing that 75% of instructional time is spent on Math and Language Arts, with the majority of the other 25% on social studies and science. These ancillary classes have been cut out completely or reduced massively across all school districts. I ask the question because there is so much chatter regarding school funding and yet money for things that would really round out early education is constantly cut. So where is the money? Are we so enamored with math and reading scores compared to other countries that we have ignored the creative aspects that made us great innovators for the past 150 years? The race to the top doesn’t equate to excellence it equates to high test scores. Last time I checked high test scores don’t create jobs, wealth, or happiness. So what’s the point? Increasingly it looks like the analogy of creating cogs for Big Daddy Warbucks’ machine is really the goal.